


Friend is a Four Letter Word

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [48]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bonding, Break Up, Domestic, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Post Series, Queer Character, Slice of Life, Threesome - F/M/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay,” Nico says. “First things first, you’re gonna tell me why the fuck Percy is dumb enough to leave his girlfriend when she’s expecting his kid, and then you’re going to tell me why you’re being dumb enough to smoke while you’re expecting. Then, maybe after, we can go beat him up. Maybe.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friend is a Four Letter Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darthvair65](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthvair65/gifts).



> Dark Month, Day 24. This was supposed to be Day 23, but alas, I lost track of time because I've been marathoning Pokemon. This was also supposed to be darker and slightly more angsty, but who am I kidding, these poor kids get enough angst in canon, so it got fluffy and stayed that way. I'm also gifting this fic to Jen because she made an offhand comment about wanting angsty canon fic that I immediately turned into post-canon angst and fluff.

 

Nico’s never smoked. He figures, when there’s so many things trying to kill him, why jump start the process? Plus, he’s a son of Hades, okay, he’s seen the aftermath of lung cancer first hand—the ghosts with raspy voices and the memory of breathing machines still embedded in their throats. He isn’t an X-ray, but he can imagine their lungs, black tar wrapped around the organs like a shroud.  
  
So when Annabeth lights up next to him, her hand curled around the flame to ward off the wind, and then exhales a thin ribbon of smoke, he blinks at her, puzzled, because child of Athena and smoking just _don’t go together at all_ , and goes, “Since when did you start smoking?”  
  
She quirks a smile his way, shivering a little. She’s wrapped up in a thick coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck and one of those silly pom-pom hats perched jauntily atop her curls, but it’s one of those days where everything is gray and dreary, the ground sodden with what might be snow or rain, but probably a mixture of both. The log they’re sitting on is faintly damp, which means that his ass is trying its damnedest not to just fall off and be done with it. Even the campfires are low to the ground, as if even with Hestia stoking them, they’re still feeling the temptation to just give up and simmer down to embers.   
  
“A couple weeks ago,” she answers, her lips wrapping around the orange filter.   
  
“But why?” he goes, his face a mask of confusion.  
  
She chews on her lip for a minute, and he thinks that she probably didn’t realize that she’d be confronted with a talkative son of Hades today. Nico’s never really been good at talking to people, her least of all, because of the whole _Percy thing_ , but it’s mid-October and Persephone and his dad are trying to bring the underworld down with their shouting. Here and Percy’s place were the only places that came to mind, and he'd be damned if he was going to go to Percy's. He could have probably gone to see Jason, but last Nico heard he was on some quest with Piper, and anyway, Nico’s sister is here with Frank, trying to work on inter-camp unity or some shit like that. Reyna’s probably somewhere too, but getting the Athena Parthenos back was kind of intense, and while he’ll admit to liking her, he also doesn’t really wanna have a conversation with her right now.  
  
Mid-October and Camp Halfblood is quiet, only the couple full-timers dragging themselves around and shivering from the cold. When he’d seen _Annabeth_ of all people, sitting by herself on a log next to the fire, he’d been caught by a spiderweb-thin thread of curiosity. So he ended up taking the seat next to her and that’s where he is now, watching a daughter of Athena inhale carcinogens and who knows what else.  
  
She slants a glance at him from out of the corner of her eye, and he’s never seen her look _helpless_ , but he thinks that it might look something like this.   
  
“Percy broke up with me,” she says, lip tucked between her teeth.  
  
He blinks at her a couple time, because what?  
  
He must have said something along those lines, because her lips quirk up into a humorless smile and repeats herself.  
  
“But… why?” he asks, trying to wrap his brain around Percy willingly leaving Annabeth. Their presence—their _love_ —was like the foundation of the fucking universe.  
  
“Could be because I’m—ah—’knocked up,’ I think that’s the term for it nowadays.”  
  
He stares at her, watching smoke wreath its way around her face, mixing with her misting breath. He reaches over and snatches the cigarette from her hands, grinding it out beneath his boot.  
  
“You aren’t stupid,” he tells her fiercely when she gives him an irritated look. “Give me those.”  
  
Regretfully, she hands over the pack. He tosses them into the fire, watching as the paper curls. “Okay,” Nico says. “First things first, you’re gonna tell me _why the fuck_ Percy is dumb enough to leave his girlfriend when she’s expecting his kid, and then you’re going to tell me why you’re being dumb enough to smoke while you’re expecting. Then, maybe after, we can go beat him up. Maybe.”  
  
She laughs, and he flinches, because it’s not a normal Annabeth laugh. He doesn’t know her well enough to be overly familiar with what her laughter sounds like, but he’s heard it _at least_ once before. It's nothing like this sharp, biting, broken sound. She fixes him with these sad, blue eyes filmed over by a sheen of tears, and the bitter smile on her lips is like a punch to the teeth.  
  
“I _am_ stupid sometimes, Nico. And as for Percy… well, he probably left because it _isn’t_ his kid.”  
  
.  
  
It takes a while for her to get through the whole story, but he gets the gist. Her dorm had a party, she got a little more intoxicated than she wanted, and slept with some random mortal who presumably goes to NYU.  
  
“I don’t even know his name,” she confesses, her fingers trembling in her lap. He, in a gesture of human kindness that is about as familiar to him as hulu hooping, reaches over and takes her fingers in his own. They’re like sticks of ice between his fingers, so he rubs them, even going so far as to breathe on them once or twice as Annabeth watches in fascination.  
  
“Why did you come here?” he asks her, curious.   
  
At that, she looks even more wretched. “I thought I’d talk to someone about it, but I got here and realized that nobody’s here that I really can talk to about this. Piper’s off with Jason, Reyna’s busy with politics, and Rachel would just tell me things I already know.”  
  
“So you thought you’d sit here and freeze while inhaling poison,” he drawls, his voice dry as kindling. He sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. Fuck. If someone told him four years ago that he would be sitting next to Percy’s girlfriend and having an actual conversation, he would have flipped them the bird, and if he was feeling particularly nasty, maybe kneed them in the balls.  
  
She gives this little laugh that’s mostly sob and he wants to smack himself. “Sorry,” he mutters, dropping her hand and leaning in so he can wrap an awkward arm around her shoulders. He hesitates.  
  
“I—” he starts, his voice cracking alarmingly. His throat feels swollen and stuffed with cotton, the words clogged up. He has to clear his throat three times before he can go on. “I know what it’s like, getting hurt by Percy but knowing that in the end, it’s your fault.”  
  
“Bianca dying wasn’t your fault,” she tells him, sniffling loudly right next to his ear.  
  
“No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “It wasn’t. But me—” he chokes, shaking, and tries to pull up that image of Jason Grace, smiling at him and assuring him in Cupid’s aftermath that everyone would still love him, even if he told them. “ _My love_ for him—that was my fault.”  
  
Her eyes are wide when he next spares a glance at her—wide and blue, her cheeks still streaked with drying tears.   
  
“You—” she whispers. He cuts her off, almost viciously, biting down hard on his lip.  
  
“Yeah, that’s Nico di Angelo’s big secret. That he fell head over heels for Percy Jackson, the boy who would later accidentally kill his sister, and even then, he still couldn’t stop.”  
  
It’s his turn to smile at her and he might be out of practice with smiling, but this one sits all wrong on his face. It’s crooked, like the broken hands of a clock. She makes this little sound, and his arm is still around her shoulders when she turns and buries her face in his chest, her shaking arms going around his waist.  
  
“I never knew,” she whispers, and he feels like such a little shit, because he’s pretty sure she’s crying again.  
  
They stay like that for a long while, two people broken into shattered pieces all for the love of one stupid, stupid boy.  
  
.  
  
“You really don’t have to do this,” she tells him, three months later. She’s starting to show, a little, this little bump against her otherwise flat abdomen. Her hair is gathered up into a tangled bun atop her head and even though they’re inside, she’s got this thick gray cardigan wrapped around her. It’s too big, so her fingers just barely peek out from beneath the sleeves. Four months give or take a couple weeks, he feels like she should be bigger, but the doctor assured them that pregnancy is different for everyone.  
  
He hefts a box out of the truck, sending her a grin. “Dude, I’m eighteen. Might as well go ahead and move out of my dad’s place.”  
  
At first, it was just Iris messages to her—shadow traveling to her dad’s house to make sure she was okay. He doesn’t know how it ended up with him offering to get an apartment with her and help her with everything, but somehow, that’s where they’d ended up. It’s a good thing that he’s a child of the god of wealth, because as it turns out, even the tiny apartments near her campus are a ridiculous amount of money.   
  
She gives him a watery smile. It doesn’t immediately send him into hysterics anymore. She’s pregnant, hormones battering her this way and that, she cries a lot.   
  
“Thank you,” she whispers, following him inside.  
  
.  
  
It’s weird at first, because even he doesn’t have enough money for a two bedroom, so they’ve got this tiny little thing that is supposedly a one bedroom, but is more along the lines of a studio that’s had a shitty wall erected between the living room and the bedroom. He doesn’t have much in the way of furniture, but she’d gotten hers from her dad’s place, and a week in, Sally Jackson had showed up with a furrow between her brows, but a smile on her lips.  
  
“I know things are tough right now,” she told Annabeth, sipping tea from one of their less-chipped mugs. She was sitting on something that was probably the back seat to someone’s car at one point in its life, wearing jeans with holes in the knees and a thick hoodie over her own baby bump. “And Percy won’t tell me much, but leaving you in this situation…” she’d trailed off, her lips thinning with displeasure. “Well, I don’t care if it isn’t his. He’s being dumb.”  
  
And then she’d told them to expect a couch and couple other things the next morning. Before she’d left, she’d turned to Nico, regarding him warmly. “I remember you,” she told him. “And I’m glad—”  
  
She trailed off before finishing, patted him on the shoulder, and left, Nico not knowing how the rest of the sentence was going to go. Glad that Nico’s getting his life together? Glad that Annabeth had someone to help her? Glad that Nico had finally gotten over his ridiculously transparent crush that she’d probably called years ago? Or maybe she’d meant all of those things, and that’s why she hadn’t finished her sentence.  
  
So courtesy of Percy Jackson’s mother, they have a couch, some kitchen appliances, and a crib. The apartment is still pretty bare, but Annabeth takes to picking up things here and there. A couple plants that Katie Gardner gave her sit in random places around the house. A rickety bookcase that Nico had helped her fashion from large cement blocks and planks of wood. An old set of plates in bright pink and blue that she'd picked up from the local Goodwill, along with some overly large plaid shirts. She looks kind of like the girlfriend of a trucker in them, but they’re worn-in and comfortable, so she takes to wearing them around a lot—to her classes, around the house, even to bed on chilly nights.  
  
At first, Nico had tried sleeping on the couch, but he hadn’t lasted three days before she was kicking him awake one night and telling him that he was being stupid, and her bed was big enough for both of them. So even though the heater’s wonky and most of the time they can see their breath inside, they stay warm at night, curled around each other.  
  
He takes odd jobs—craigslist ads that Annabeth curls her lip at over his shoulder and more legitimate ads in the newspaper. Once, he works at a printing press for about a week and a half before he realizes that the manager is skimming everyone’s pay.  
  
“I don’t like it,” she tells him. “You might not come home some day, because some serial killer's got you nailed to his ceiling.”  
  
It’s the way she says _home_ that makes him falter, knife paused half in, half out of a stalk of broccoli. He looks at her and her face is flushing ever so slightly, just enough to let him know that she’s tripping over her words as well.  
  
“I’m a son of Hades,” he eventually replies. “Even if a mortal could kill me, I’d find some way to send a message back.”  
  
.  
  
Annabeth is six months in and has enrolled them both in a couple of pregnancy classes before Percy Jackson deigns to show his face on their doorstep.  
  
The classes are actually kind of fun, once he gets over the way that everyone just kind of assumes that him and Annabeth are a thing. He doesn’t mind, really. The breathing exercises are his favorite part. The yoga just makes him laugh.  
  
They’re just getting back, having spent the last hour learning how to change a diaper and burp a kid, all things that they'd practiced on a particularly creepy baby doll, and are kind of stumbling down the street, laughing about Annabeth’s waddle when Nico sees the figure seated in front of the door.  
  
He stops Annabeth, wrapping an arm around her waist and shushing her when she starts to ask what’s wrong. They’ve been lucky with the lack of monsters, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not just waiting until they least expect it. He draws his sword slowly, quietly, and as one, they edge closer, Annabeth pulling her own dagger from her belt as she goes.  
  
The sight that awaits them isn’t a monster, but judging from the punched out look on Annabeth’s face, she would almost have rather it been one.  
  
Percy Jackson, put simply, looks like shit. His hair is messy, his eyes bloodshot, and there’s what looks like three weeks worth of beard on his chin. He sways a little, when he stands, and gives them both this look—like they’re both the best and worst things he’s ever seen.  
  
“Annabeth,” he rasps, pausing to clear his throat and look Nico’s way. “Nico.”  
  
They stay like that for a long moment, just staring at each other, Annabeth’s hand squeezing Nico’s arm so tightly that it’s starting to go tingly and numb. Percy’s expression goes sideways and something cracks in his eyes, something brittle and painful that he’s probably been trying to hold patched together.  
  
He forgets sometimes, how strong she is—it isn't often, because she’s still Annabeth, the baby growing inside of her hasn’t changed that, but sometimes, when she’s sobbing softly into his neck, he forgets that the woman clutching his coat is actually one of the strongest people he knows. She still has nightmares about Tartarus and when she wakes, gasping from one, he’ll pull her close and murmur to her until she falls back asleep. He knows how it is, because he still has nightmares himself.  
  
But as she looks at Percy, her eyes go hard, her voice steely when she nods and says, “Percy.”  
  
“Um,” Percy goes, teetering a little on his feet like he’s either sleep-deprived or drunk. “Can I talk to you?”  
  
Nico feels the way her spine goes tense and hopes that she isn’t getting ready to stab Percy in the face. He reaches blindly, finds her hand, and squeezes. Just like that, the tension goes out of her. She huffs, loudly, and squeezes back.  
  
Percy’s staring at their hands like the world is unraveling around him and Nico kind of gets why he’d been angry before, but Percy _loved_ her. Leaving her like that, when she needed it most—even if they get back together, he knows it’s not something that Annabeth’s going to soon forget.  
  
“Yeah, sure,” she sighs, fumbling in her pocket for the keys. Percy shuffles aside when they approach, getting out of the way so they can get the door open. Annabeth doesn’t fumble the keys—her hands don’t tremble as she slides the key into the lock, even though her ex-boyfriend is standing just over her shoulder and watching as she jimmies it, smacking the door to make it creak open.  
  
“Come on, then,” she tells him, and pulls Nico inside.  
  
.  
  
Nico had a conversation with Percy about his feelings just once. Well, calling it a conversation probably wasn’t right, because it was mostly Nico getting flustered one night and launching himself at Percy’s lips.  
  
The kiss had been clumsy and stupid, because he was sixteen years old and more than a little bit intoxicated, but the thing he remembers the most, besides for the rejection and hurt, is that for a little over a minute, Percy had kissed back.   
  
It was the best minute and ten seconds of his life, Percy’s lips sliding against his, one hand wrapped around the back of Nico’s skull, the other around his waist, tugging him in closer. Then he’d pulled away, lips shiny and wet, and said, “I can’t.”  
  
He hadn’t told Annabeth, which Nico knows now because he’d been the one to tell her, that first day beneath a dreary gray sky.  
  
“I thought he would have told you,” Nico explained, blushing hotly and expecting a dagger through the gut. Instead she’d sighed and shaken her head.  
  
Now, seated on the couch in the apartment he shares with Annabeth, he can’t help but remember that night—those brief few seconds where Percy had held them together and kissed him back—when Nico had, for the first time in his life, really and truly felt wanted.  
  
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing out of Percy’s mouth. He’s standing, even though Annabeth told him that he could take a seat, pacing around in front of them like he can’t keep himself still.  
  
Annabeth, in contrast, is still as a statue next to Nico, her hand curled protectively over her belly. He knows, because Percy’s eyes keep darting down to it, then up to her face, then over to Nico.  
  
 _Are you the one who knocked her up?_   
  
He can almost see the question in Percy’s eyes. He ignores it, partially because it hurts, but more because the question doesn’t even deserve an answer.  
  
“I’m sorry for breaking up with you,” he goes on, almost tripping over the beat up persian rug they’d pulled from someone’s garbage. “I’m sorry for being a dick. I was scared and hurt, and I left you alone when you needed it most.”  
  
He falters, just a bit, when he says the word ‘alone.’ A long silence stretches around them, emotions thick in the air. Percy stops pacing, finally, his shoulders slumping as he gazes at Annabeth imploringly.   
  
“I uh, don’t suppose you’d consider taking me back?” he asks, his voice absolutely wrecked. She flinches, just a little, glancing at him before turning her eyes to Nico. She’s tempted—so fucking tempted. He can feel it beneath his ribcage, crackling in the air around them, her desire to give in and go to him. He expects it even, can see it in his mind’s eye—her dropping his hand and moving around the coffee table to throw her arms around Percy.  
  
Instead, she blinks, and asks, “Why did you stop kissing Nico two years ago?”  
  
Both he and Percy flinch, but Nico at least has her hand tightening around his to ground him. Percy looks like he wants to be sick, a little, and keeps glancing between them. “You told her that, huh?” he murmurs.  
  
“Of course I told her,” Nico hisses, anger splitting him apart like an old friend. “I thought _you_ would have.”  
  
Percy chuckles bitterly. “I thought she would have broken up with me,” he says, scuffing his foot on the ground. The bitterness makes sense—him not telling Annabeth because he thought she’d break up with him for that and him actually breaking up with her for the same—or nearly the same—reason.  
  
“You aren’t answering the question,” Annabeth reminds him. He nods, sharply, dropping into the armchair behind him and fixing his eyes on the geranium sitting on their coffee table.   
  
“I stopped because I was afraid of losing you,” he tells the plant. “Same reason that I didn’t tell you about it.”  
  
She nods, like she’d expected that. “You liked him though?”  
  
Nico’s head snaps up, his eyes panicked. She doesn’t look at him at all, her eyes still glued to Percy. What the hell is she doing?  
  
Percy snorts. “Of course I did, wouldn’t have kissed back otherwise.”  
  
Annabeth makes a noise like a hum, leaning forward as much as she can with the baby in her way. “Do it again,” she says, softly. She watches Percy’s eyes snap up to hers, the way they widen.   
  
“What?” Percy asks, giving voice to what Nico’s thinking.  
  
“Kiss him again,” she says, her gaze challenging. “And I’ll consider it.”  
  
“I feel like I missed something here,” Nico mutters, because seriously, what the hell is going on. “I should really go—”  
  
She stops him, tugging sharply on his wrist so he tumbles back onto the couch. He stares at her, but she’s still not looking at him.  
  
It feels like it takes forever for Percy to slide cautiously out of that armchair and pad around the table, until he’s standing between Nico’s legs and staring down at him. Slowly, he sinks down, until he’s kneeling in the space between Nico and the coffee table. His eyes are an open book—confusion, fear, and temptation whirling inside them—gray, green, blue, like the beginnings of a storm.   
  
“Are you sure?” Percy asks, leaning forward until Nico’s breath starts coming in short, near-silent gasps. He doesn’t know who Percy’s asking, him or Annabeth, and he doesn’t have time to wonder, because then Percy’s lips are on his.  
  
It’s different, this time. Before it was the chaste slide of lips against lips, the vaguest hint of a tongue. This kiss starts that way too, just Percy’s mouth touching his as Nico’s breathing goes choppy and uneven. Then it changes, Percy’s hand sliding into his hair, the other reaching out to steady himself as he leans up and over Nico, propping his knee up on the cushions between Nico’s spread thighs.   
  
Nico whimpers a bit when Percy deepens the kiss, one hand still in Annabeth’s lap, the other hesitating, unsure, before coming to rest tentatively against Percy’s jaw. Percy makes a desperate little noise and slides all the way into Nico’s lap, knees bracketing his hips, the heavy weight of him settled on Nico’s thighs.  
  
He doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts, just that by the end of it they’re both gasping and flushed, and judging by the hardness pressed against his stomach, more than a little bit interested in continuing.  
  
Nico shudders when Percy shifts his weight, making some kind of noise low in his throat that has Percy giving him an apologetic look. They both turn to look at Annabeth, only to find her giving them this smug little smile.   
  
“Thought so,” she says, nodding.

Her hands twitch in her lap and she looks at both of them for a moment before the smugness eases into something softer. “I haven’t forgiven you yet,” she warns Percy. She then turns her attention to Nico, her eyes amused. “But I’m game with sharing if you are.”  
  
His eyes widen and he feels it when Percy jolts against him, shocked, because the movement drags their hips together and turns surprise into brief, unexpectedly intense pleasure.  
  
Annabeth just laughs.  
  
.  
  
It’s awkward and slow going at first. Annabeth and Percy need to relearn each other, cataloging all the new things that they’ve missed in the last six months. Nico and Percy just need to learn each other, _period_ , which takes a while, because surprise boners notwithstanding, they’re both nervous about doing more than kissing, especially if Annabeth isn’t around to balance them out.  
  
In the end, she’s the one who gets fed up and tugs them all down onto her bed, which is in no way big enough for three people. Nico gets to watch, up close, as Percy feathers kisses down her throat and across her belly—he gets to experience Annabeth turning her face into his neck and gasping, breathlessly, as Percy goes down on her enthusiastically, only the top of his hair visible past the baby bump.  
  
Girls still don’t do much for him, but Annabeth is something wholly different, and over the last few months, he’s grown to love her fiercely. It’s a kind of cross between what he feels for Percy and what he used to feel for Bianca, which makes him feel weird for about thirty seconds before Annabeth lets out this ragged moan that vibrates straight through to his core.  
  
When Annabeth is lying boneless against their side, Percy moves his attention to Nico, kissing him gently, the lingering taste of Annabeth clinging to his lips.   
  
After, when the three of them are lying there, limbs every which way, Annabeth grins at them, and says, “There, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”  
  
.  
  
The baby is due any day and the only thing that’s really changed is that they’re now the talk of the child birthing class, because Percy has joined them. Annabeth and Nico still sleep pressed together, only now sometimes Percy joins them, wedging himself between their bodies until they're nearly falling off the sides of the bed.  
  
Three demigods walk into a maternity ward—sounds like the punchline to a joke.  
  
.  
  
Annabeth’s baby has loose blonde curls atop her head and her screams are nearly loud enough to wake the dead. Nico immediately loves her fiercely and that love is only trumped by the smile Annabeth gives him when she presses her new baby girl into Nico's arms, Percy tucked loosely up against his side and peering over Nico's shoulder, his body this long, sagging line of relief and happiness.

She's so tiny in his arms and he thinks, somewhat giddily, that he can learn to live like this.


End file.
